Someone tell Frist to shut the Hell up
The latest bogeyman appears to be the filibuster, the great stall method of babbling. I view congress not accomplishing anything as a success. When congress acts, it usually does so poorly, inefficiently, grandstandingly and unconstitutionally. I prefer them not doing anything and I feel safer when they’re not in session.
Frist, addressing some church group or something, says:
“I don’t think it’s radical to ask senators to vote,” Dr. Frist said. “Now if Senator Reid continues to obstruct the process, we will consider what opponents call the ‘nuclear option.’ Only in the United States Senate could it be considered a devastating option to allow a vote. Most places call that democracy.”
What the jackpot Republican Congress fails to grasp is that they will likely not be in power forever. What goes around comes around.
April 25th, 2005 at 10:07 am
worst. republican. ever.
I can’t believe I voted for that asshole.
I couldn’t stand Sasser and I though it would be “refreshing” to have a senator that was an MD, rather than an attorney. I guess I forgot about the whole God complex thing that some doctors fall into.
Bill Frist is a monarchist that can’t wait to be king, and he’ll do anything to get there.
Anyone who writes a booke entitled “Good People Beget Good People” should not be trusted with public office in the 21st century. To be fair, he would be a great candidate for the 13th century.
My favorite review of his book from Amazon:
“I read it, I laughed, I cried. Then I laughed again. We won’t mention the vomiting; let’s just stick with the laughs.”
April 25th, 2005 at 2:55 pm
Umm, the Republicans did not use this “tool” to block Executive sessions and really did not use it much to block Legeslative sessions (where it is supposed to be used).
So, the Republicans taking this away is like telling me that I can’t go to Ranger school now. Yea, I wanted to before (when it would not have killed me) but I never went and now I can’t go so it doesen’t matter anyway.
April 25th, 2005 at 3:18 pm
I would prefer if it was really hard for these jerks to make laws.
But we do need judges.
And good ones.
Fili’ing on a judge is rather stupid, imo.
April 25th, 2005 at 5:50 pm
Good point. Just think of all those crazy judges who President Carter would have appointed to the Ninth Circuit if the Republicans hadn’t had the filibuster. And remember that far-left nut Ruth Bader Ginsburg? If the Republicans hadn’t had the precious filibuster back on the 1990s, she’d probably be on the Supreme Court by now.
April 25th, 2005 at 7:08 pm
I hate to disagree, but on the “what goes around…” line… well, if they’re out of power enough for bills to be passed with just a majority (as opposed to being “filibuster proof” or whatever), the Democrats could just as easily use the “nuclear option” to get rid of the filibuster.
April 26th, 2005 at 12:47 pm
Ginsburg?!? She was approved by the Senate 96-3.
April 26th, 2005 at 4:37 pm
I know. That was my point. If there was anybody the Republicans coulda-woulda-shoulda filibustered it was her. They didn’t, which is why Uncle’s “what goes around comes around” argument falls flat. That, plus the reality that just because the Republicans eschew the “nuclear” option today doesn’t mean the Dems won’t invoke it tomorrow.
April 26th, 2005 at 10:57 pm
Jon:
Nobody has ever explained this to me: how is making it easier to approve judicial nominees going to put better-qualified, less-partisan judges on the bench? I would think that if that were the goal, you’d want to raise the bar for approval, not lower it.
No, the only reason I can conceive of for supporting ditching the filibuster for judicial nominations is for short term gain, i.e., because you like the candidates that the party currently in power is having blocked by it. Any attempt to assign a high-minded rationale for ditching it seems to me to be transparent.
After all, if we considered “majority rule” to be what we mean by “democracy,” we wouldn’t have a Senate at all, what with its wildly disproportionate representation. No, the whole idea behind the Senate is that certain minorities should be protected in certain ways.
By the way, the Democrats have filibustered a whopping 4.6% of GWB’s nominees, approving over 200 nominees, and the GOP is going to whine about the ten they didn’t get? I thought the Democrats were supposed to be the crybaby party. I mean, really, the GOP’s “oppressed majority” schtick got old a long time ago. Boo hoo.
And it isn’t as if the Democrats are blocking these nominees for no good reason. Priscilla Owen is opposed in large part because her Texas Supreme Court colleages — all Republicans — have branded her a judicial activist. Among them was a guy named Alberto Gonzales. Perhaps you’ve heard of him. (Of course, he later did a nice bit of backpedaling and now toes the party line.)
Pickering, for his part, has been reversed 15 times for ignoring or violating “well-settled principles of law,” and 11 of those 15 involved civil rights issues, constitutional issues, criminal procedure, or labor issues. Source.
In other words, in a supreme ironic twist, the GOP wants to approve them specifically because they are activist judges (they just happen to be activists with whom the GOP agrees), and the Democrats oppose them for this reason. To my mind, it says a lot more bad about the GOP that 51 of them would vote to approve these candidates than it does about the Democrats that 41 of them would vote to filibuster.